Stress Positions
Alt comic John Early (“Search Party”), Amy Zimmer (Problemista), writer/director Theda Hammel (“My Trip to Spain”), and newcomer Qaher Harhash star is this frantic, coarse, and bitterly funny ensemble comedy set at a pandemic-era Brooklyn brownstone.
Director Theda Hammel scheduled to attend.
Remember 2020? Theda Hammel’s pandemic period piece opens with Terry Goon (John Early) locked down in a dilapidated NYC brownstone owned by his wealthy, partying abroad, soon-to-be-ex-husband. Terry’s uncertain circumstances are further complicated as he finds himself a harried, semi-competent, COVID-conscious caretaker for his nephew Bahul (Qaher Harsh), a model with a broken leg. Despite efforts to flatten the curve, the prospect of meeting this hot “exotic” model proves irresistible to his stir-crazy social network desperate to break protocol after a winter of quarantine. Captivity-induced boredom makes great fodder for self-reflection and finding freedom in fiction for the film's overlapping unreliable narrators. Stifled masseuse Karla’s (director Theda Hammel) frustration with her novelist wife has her eager to drink someone else’s booze and hear someone else’s stories. Young Bahul’s bedridden days are spent reconciling hazy childhood memories and contemplating his identity, a work-in-progress catastrophically disrupted by a global pandemic and a routine scooter accident. Each spin on the languid summer competes with Early’s flailing attempts to hold the whole thing together. It’s a surprisingly uproarious time capsule from a summer we thought we'd rather forget: gas masks doubled as PPE; ubiquitous delivery guys were instantly intriguing; backyard barbecues were a logic puzzle of dietary requirements and distancing; sundown meant dropping everything to bang pots at the window to thank essential workers; and everyone gave themselves permission to be a hot mess. What a long, strange trip that was.
—Josh Bis
- Director: Theda Hammel
- Principal Cast: John Early, Theda Hammel, Qaher Harhash, Amy Zimmer, John Roberts
- Country: USA
- Year: 2024
- Running Time: 95 min.
- Producer: Brad Becker-Parton, John Early, Stephanie Roush, Allie Jane Compton, Greg Nobile
- Screenplay: Theda Hammel, Faheem Ali
- Cinematographers: Arlene Muller
- Editors: Erin DeWitt, Theda Hammel
- Music: Theda Hammel
- Website: Official Film Website
- Filmography: Debut Feature Film
- Language: English
- US Distributor: NEON